2 The (Interactive) Glasgow Haskell Compiler -- version 5.00
3 ============================================================
5 We are pleased to announce a new major release of the Glasgow Haskell
6 Compiler (GHC), version 5.00. The source distribution is freely
7 available via the World-Wide Web and through anon. FTP, under a
8 BSD-style license. See below for download details. Pre-built
9 packages for Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and Win32 are also available.
11 Haskell is a standard lazy functional programming language; the
12 current language version is Haskell 98, agreed in December 1998.
14 GHC is a state-of-the-art programming suite for Haskell. Included is
15 an optimising compiler generating good code for a variety of
16 platforms, together with an interactive system for convenient, quick
17 development. The distribution includes space and time profiling
18 facilities, a large collection of libraries, and support for various
19 language extensions, including concurrency, exceptions, and foreign
20 language interfaces (C, C++, whatever).
22 A wide variety of Haskell related resources (tutorials, libraries,
23 specifications, documentation, compilers, interpreters, references,
24 contact information, links to research groups) are available from the
27 http://www.haskell.org/
29 GHC's Web page lives at
31 http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
38 5.00 has been majorly revamped since the previous stable version, 4.08.2.
39 This should be a stable release. Major changes since 4.08.2 are:
41 - An interactive system, similar in style to Hugs. You can interactively
42 load and unload modules, run expressions, ask the types of things.
43 Module dependencies are tracked and chased automatically.
44 Combinations of compiled and interpreted modules may be used.
45 All the GHC libraries are available in interactive mode, as are
46 most of the Glasgow extensions to Haskell 98. Compilation in
47 interactive mode (to bytecode) is about three times faster than
48 compiling to object code.
50 - Batch compilation of multiple modules at once, with automatic
51 dependency chasing. For large programs this can halve compilation
52 times, and removes the need for Makefiles.
54 - Enhanced package (library) management system. Packages may be
55 installed and removed from an installation using the ghc-pkg tool.
57 - Initial Unicode support - the Char type is now 31 bits.
59 - Sparc native code generator, giving much faster compilation on sparcs.
60 (Native code generation for x86s has been available for a while).
62 - Improved heap profiling - you can restrict heap profiles
63 by type, closure description, cost centre, and module.
65 - Support for the latest Foreign Function Interface (FFI)
66 proposals. Marcin Kowalczyk's hsc2hs tool is included.
68 - Language extensions: parallel list comprehensions and functional
71 - The usual huge collection of bug fixes. Most reported bugs have
74 For full details see the release notes:
76 http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.00/set/release-5-00.html
83 The easy way is to go to the WWW page, which should be
86 http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
88 We supply binary builds in .rpm/.deb form for all you Linux junkies
89 out there, and in InstallShield form for Windows folks. Everybody
90 else gets a .tar.gz which can be installed where you want.
92 Once you have the distribution, please follow the pointers in the
93 README file to find all of the documentation about this release.
97 On-line GHC-related resources
98 ===============================
100 Relevant URLs on the World-Wide Web:
102 GHC home page http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
103 Haskell home page http://www.haskell.org/
104 comp.lang.functional FAQ http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gmh/faq.html
109 =====================
111 To compile programs with GHC, you need a machine with 32+MB memory, GNU C
112 and perl. This release is known to work on the following platforms:
114 * i386-unknown-{linux,freebsd,mingw32}
117 Ports to the following platforms should be relatively easy (for a
118 wunderhacker), but haven't been tested due to lack of time/hardware:
120 * hppa1.1-hp-hpux{9,10}
121 * i386-unknown-solaris2
124 * {rs6000,powerpc}-ibm-aix
126 The builder's guide included in distribution gives a complete
127 run-down of what ports work; an on-line version can be found at
129 http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/5.00/building/building-guide.html
136 We run mailing lists for GHC users and bug reports; to subscribe, use
137 the web interfaces at
139 http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users
140 http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-bugs
142 There are several other haskell and ghc-related mailing lists on
143 www.haskell.org; for the full list, see
145 http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/
147 Please send bug reports about GHC to glasgow-haskell-bugs@haskell.org;
148 GHC users hang out on glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org. Bleeding
149 edge CVS users party on cvs-ghc@haskell.org.